


Crack

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 22:58:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5983507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi fears the day Erwin will shatter</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crack

Erwin Smith is made of glass.

He hides it behind a stony face and words that forms icicles on his tongue when he speaks. He hides it behind the corps’ insignia, behind the mantra he repeats to every scornful nobleman, every bawling mother, and every soldier that breaks down in his office. He hides it from those who accept the image he presents them and from those who choose to try and look past it, like Pixis and his scrutinizing eyes, and Mike’s faultless nose.

It takes practice to be able to do this so efficiently. Levi learns this when he begins to hide his own bruised emotions and paper heart. Because there simply isn’t any room for them between ears ringing with screams and eyes stained with blood. Levi knows. He also knows he should know better than to pry, that Erwin has as much right to bury himself as any of them do.

But sometimes, most times, Levi cannot help but listen as Erwin’s bones crack.

 

It started out as a low, crackling sound that Levi heard just under his jaw. Like campfire, but sharper. Grinding glass shards. He still remembers the night he first heard it; every detail horribly etched into his memory. Erwin had come back from the capital empty handed despite all the convincing speeches he’d practiced in front of Levi, despite the bright smile that had breathed life into Levi’s lungs as the commander assured him the funds were as good as theirs this year. But the man Levi had watched breathing confidence as he’d gotten into the carriage, had come back and crumbled behind his desk. Not even what little moonlight there was could light Erwin’s melancholy maimed face.

They’d exchanged no words that night. Erwin had attempted to. Levi knew that from the way he’d watched his lips part and close as though the words had been slipping from them before his tongue could put voice to them. Levi hadn’t pushed, convincing himself that his presence was more refined than what pathetic attempts at comforting he could ever muster. He’d only sat there, in one of the two chairs opposite Erwin’s desk, watching his eyes burn frostbites into a random point onto the whitewashed wood.

Which was just as well, Levi thinks. Because the only thing he’d heard that night the single time Erwin opened his mouth to suck in a breath was:

Crackle. Crackle. Crack.

And the sudden image of veins breaking in Erwin’s glass jaw was enough to make Levi thankful for the silence that’d preceded that moment, and the silence that came every day after.

The latter had made him hope it’d been an isolated incident, some hallucination brought on by the deep ache he felt at seeing his lover so disheartened. Because the thought that he might hear it again kept him up for more nights than he cares to count, kept his ears ringing in anticipation to hear a sound he knows he’ll never get accustomed to. That hope was the only thing that’d stopped his heart from skipping vital beats every time something didn’t go according to the commander’s plans. That hope, and the fact the sound did not reach his ears again for months after that night, helped him forget about it almost together.

Until they came back from a particularly awry expedition. The number of bodies filling their carts as devastating as that of those who could not make it back into the walls either living or dead. Levi could safely say that there wasn’t a single soldier who hadn’t spilled blood that time. Where ever he looked there was a broken limb, a bleeding one, a missing one. He, himself, had broken his wrist, twisted it to the point that could’ve rendered it mangled and useless.

Everyone but Erwin…

Erwin, Erwin and his broken irises. Erwin whom the world had been so scornful and shallow sighted to not look past his unmarred skin and see that he was just as bruised, and broken, and bleeding even if his body didn’t show it. The crowd had gnarled their teeth at him as the scouts pushed trudged through town. They’d hissed about wasted tax money, screamed names that belonged to cold bodies, and shrieked obscenities at their murderer. 

But for the first time in years gone and years to come, Levi couldn’t hear them. All he could here was that sound.

Grit. Crunch. Crunch. 

The sound came back again and was louder, more defined. It made Levi’s breath hitch. He could barely see anything besides Erwin’s face, grey eyes searching the commander’s rigid jaw, the sweat slicked cut of his brow. Levi’s fingers twisted into his horse’s bridle till his knuckles bleached.

He couldn’t see anything. Erwin was as composed as ever, face wrecked with exhaustion and many a sleepless night, but the sound was worse than ever, and Levi’s mind was as good at painting horrific images as real life was. All it painted was cracks, in Erwin’s cheeks, at the corners of his lips, from his jaw and down his neck. They were barely holding him together, pressed against each other to keep the man from falling apart.

‘The money we could be using…’

Grit.

“…to feed our children…”

Crunch.

“We give to this man, to feed to titans instead.”

Crunch.

Levi remembers following Erwin to his room, even though the latter didn’t ask him to. It was as though there were invisible strings pulling him. Strings that stuck to the cracks in Erwin, that would pull the man apart if Levi’d just left him to his own demons that night. So Levi followed, and Levi sat in the room watching as Erwin cleansed himself of the blood the townsfolk said he’d bathed in the days before, and Levi watched Erwin stare at him for longer than anyone would find comfortable only to kneel by him and suck in a shaky breath again.

Crackle. Crackle. Crack.

“It isn’t enough,” Erwin breathed, “Going to hell isn’t enough. I’ve taken away their lives…the only they’ll ever have, and nothing can give that back, Levi.”

Levi’s hands had found their way through golden silk hair, smoothing it out of Erwin’s eyes.

“Their lives weren’t yours to have given away,” Levi murmured against Erwin’s sharp jaw, “And they weren’t their families’ to have wanted to keep.” He pressed his nose into the base of Erwin’s neck, feeling for a flesh, warm blood, a warm scent. But he felt nothing.

Crack.

“They gave their lives for humanity to take a step forward,” He murmured, “Remember? The only time we’ll have wasted their lives is if we break down now, remember? Erwin, you remember.” 

The sound had stopped, but Levi hadn’t. He’d spent the entire night pressing kisses and fiery hopes over the breaking glass, hoping the desperation and heat in every press of his lips was enough to glue it back together.

Even though Levi knew, he knew, that nothing could fix broken glass. Not even him, with his undying, death defying love for Erwin and the very ground that touched his feet. Levi knew that all he could do was try to ease the pressure, try to keep Erwin together with farfetched hopes like goggles’ research, Jaeger, the basement.

Which he did, every time he heard that sound.

After every empty expedition.

And again, harder when Levi’s squad had perished, their murderer seeping between exhausting nights of planning and preparation like smoke.

And then again when Mike and Nanaba were reported missing, their squad slaughtered.

Grit.

Crunch.

Crunch.

Crack.

Grit.

Crunch.

Crack.

It didn’t matter, Levi would tell the tremor in his wrist as it raised the teacup to his lips. It didn’t matter how many creases and cracks Erwin gained with every passing day. It didn’t matter how many of those cracks Levi hadn’t been able to listen to in the time they’d been apart. As long as there were the kisses and hopes, Erwin would remain in one piece. Nothing else mattered.

Now, as they stand at the basement door, as Jaeger pushes the key in and turns, Levi keeps his eyes on Erwin while everyone keeps theirs on the door they’d been made to believe held their freedom behind it. No, Levi doesn’t need that. Instead, he watches Erwin’s fingers clench and relax, the muscles of his neck twitch under taut skin, the sinew rolls. 

If only he’d known those hopes would materialize so soon. 

Everything Levi fears, every kiss he’s planted in the cracks of Erwin’s glass figure, every breath he’s held in order to hear the breaking better, stood upon this very moment. Levi wants to tell Jaeger to stop, he has to pin his own hand down as it all but darts to the key. From the corner of his eyes, he can see the shards of Erwin’s shaky figure breathe, come apart and close in again. They almost graze Levi every time they separate, and pull his heart out of his ribs every time they come together. They pierce his skin when he hears the key turn in its lock. And when the door creaks open, when Levi should hear a roaring in his ears at what they see, like everyone else is, from the morbid looks on their faces, all Levi hears is: 

Crack.


End file.
